Chapter 4 Figure 4.1
2.3 Labour migration in Lesotho: An historical perspective
The study of population distribution in Lesotho shows unequal variation in population densities between the lowland and mountain regions of the country. This difference in population density is a result of environmental, political and economic differences between the west and the east of the country. According to Mcleod( 1995) shortages of grazing land in the lowland areas during the 1890's forced many livestock farmers into the mountains, thus establishing the institution of rural cattle-post settlements. This land shortage was heightened by the introduction of the South African squatters act of 1912 which compelled many Basotho who had previously settled in the Republic of South Africa to return home thus increasing competition for land, both for settlement and farming purposes. This change brought about, the historical migration of livestock farmers from the Western lowland areas into the Mountain region forming the mountain districts of Lesotho such as Qachasneck, Mokhotlong and Thaba-Tseka (Mcleod, 1995).
The population of Lesotho has ever since, been mobile with people moving either temporarily or permanently between different regions or districts and or even within different parts of the same districts for a number of reasons. The subsequent culture of migration has in addition led to a number of external labour movements in search of procuring livelihoods by the people of Lesotho(Matlosa,1997; Mcleod,1995).
2.3.1 Internal migration in Lesotho
In Lesotho, internal migration is part of a very complex process of social mobility, ranging from daily, too seasonal and periodic movements of different categories of people. As previously highlighted career concerns primarily entice people to migrate from their home areas to other areas for the purposes of earning cash or payment in kind for household subsistence. But, inter-annual migration between districts and regions is an historical process among the Basotho people, and is not newto the advent of waged labour, as such the phenomenon of internal migration is made more complex.
Even though data on internal migration is not always readily available, the substantial growth of population in areas which are economically better off indicates a great deal of internal migration within the country. For instance, areas displaying relatively higher concentrations of economic developments such as Maseru and Maputsoe industrial estates (both of which are in the western lowlands) are where most of the developments are concentrated than in the eastern mountain areas. The latter areas are relatively less developed and therefore people move away from them to the Western developed areas for job opportunities, social and economic amenities.
Figure 2.2: depicts the major historical trends of internal migration within the country.
As the arrows indicate, movements are from rural areas to major towns in the west mainly to Maseru and to other major lowland towns such as Leribe and Mafeteng.
Although a detailed analysis of the causes and effects of the implications of internal migration may form a valuable contribution to understanding the mechanisms of human migration, the focus of this dissertation is rather based on the effects and future prospects of the Lesotho's history of sending migrant labour to South Africa.
This is not to disregard the fact that most internal rural-urban migration from the rural or mountain districts of Mokhotlong (case-study district),Thaba-Tseka, and Qachasneck are in part a result of historical urban bias in regional economic development planning by the government of Lesotho since independence, four decades ago (Mcleod,1995).
.. B
~
o
KEY
• . Capital
Administrative Towns Migration of people Foothill Region
~~;~:;~7:io/(Be~a ~
// ....
:C?~~!!~~[~\::~ng "
\ ~
39
o
25I
Kilometres
N
A
Figure 2.2: Trends of domestic internal labour migration in Lesotho
(Source: After Mcleod, 1995)
2.3.2 Lesotho's labour migration into South Africa
According authors such as Molefi(1991), Matlosa(1996&1997), Gill (1996), Strom(1976), Cobbe (1982), Murray (1981), labour migration from Lesotho to South Africa dates as far back as the initial socio-economic contacts between the Basotho and the White Settlers in South Africa in the 1800's. It is maintained that at this time, Basotho were employed in sugar plantations in Natal as well as in labour intensive constructions such as railways and domestic occupations throughout South Africa. Lesotho's dependence on South Africa for employment opportunities is thus a historical phenomenon which started long before the mineral discoveries in Kimberly and Witwatersrand (Cobbe,1982).
Furthermore, the 1970's agricultural census of Lesotho, shows that about 51.1 % of a total population was outside the country working as migrant workers in South Africa, while ten years later in 1986, this number had increased to 68%(Kingdom of Lesotho,1987; Perry, 1983). Moreover, during the same year, 1986, migrant labourers were estimated to have brought to Lesotho government,earnings in the region of R48 million in the form of deferred payments and R25 million as remittances sent to individual migrant households as cash or goods (Kingdom of Lesotho, 1987). Other types of work aside from gold and coal mining for which migrant Basotho workers were recruited include; domestic duties, farming, construction, manufacturing and other service industries these have received wider documentation.
Table 2.2 displays the percentage of Basotho migrant workers in each of the basic mine job-categories in which they have been involved in South Africa. These include; surface work, underground supervisory, mechanical, engineering, basic and other sub- categories.
Table 2.2 Basotho mine employment categories in South Africa
Type of work % of Employment category
Surface Work 9.9
Driver 1.5
security 1.5
clerk 1.1
cleaner 1.1
kitchen 0.9
Underground supervisory 39.9
miner 25.2
stope team leader _ -10.8
general team leader 2.6
gang supervisor 1.1
Underground mechanical 29.1
winch driver 15.7
locomotion driver 6.3
dri II operator 2.8
Underground engineering 4.7
electrician 1.7
boiler maker 0.9
plumber 0.9
Underground basic 16.4
timber worker 5.4
mining team 5.0
spare gang 4.
Source: Migration Policy Series No.2, 1997:7
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Various combinations of factors which have fostered and sustained labour migration between Lesotho and South Africa over the last century have also received both verbal and written documentation analysing both the pull and push factors behind the development of the migrant labour system to South Africa .The following section deals with some of the major historical reasons for this oscillating labour system.
2.3.2·1 Motivations for labour migration into South Africa
o
Land shortages for agricultural production:In 1999, many people in Lesotho did not have any accessibility rights to owning any farming land mainly due to:
Historical sub-divisions of household's fields between members;
11 Physical unavailability of any virgin or unclaimed arable land, resulting from the increased population growth within Lesotho as a whole. For example, during mid- 1992, the total population of Lesotho was estimated at1.9 million while during the 1990-1996, it was again estimated to have increased annually at an average rate of 2.1 % (Van Buren, 1998 ).
III The natural topography being rugged and mountainous means that 58 % ,more than half the whole country is mountainous, and is hence, hostile to human attempts to manipulate agriculture. This factor is a natural impediment to crop production in that it limits the availability of arable land. Given the shortage of arable land country wide and the increased demand for arable land by the newly established families or novice households, marginal and already impoverished areas and steep slopes have been turned into fields for subsistence production.
This has become a common practice, especially in the rural mountain area's hill slopes to compensate for the shortage of farming arable land. Unfortunately this option has contributed to the acceleration of the soil erosion and degradation problem facing the agricultural development of Lesotho as an agricultural economy(Mcleod,1995); Murray,1981).
43
o
Population pressureDocumentation of Lesotho's labour migration reveals that in some circumstances people migrated for employment opportunities in South Africa out of necessity as a result of low agricultural yields. Accordingly, labour migration was initially a strategy for supplementing low agricultural yields by some peasant households but in others, labour migration was basically regarded as a compensation for lack of farming land culminating from the relative increases in population(Cobbe andBardill, 1984; Eldridge, 1993; Molefi, 1991 ;Murray, 1981; Strom,1972. For instance, in 1992 Lesotho's population was estimated at 1.9 million and that the rate of population increase was an annual rate of around 21 %. It was also calculated that 78% of the resident population were living in rural areas thereby worsening the problem of land shortage further (Molefi, 1991 ).
o
Agricultural investments:The study of labour migration in Lesotho reveals that a section of Basotho migrated for employment in South Africa with the purpose to acquire cash with which to purchase technology for investment in agricultural production. The desire by some of the Basotho migrants to invest in agriculture seemed to have implied the following:
Purchases of agricultural tools such as the iron plough(Murry, 1981 ; Mcleod,1995);
I1 Related farming equipments of harrows and planters(Molefi, 1991);
III Purchases of draught animals or the ox-span(Molefi,1991);
IV Purchases of pesticides, insecticides and livestock disease control measures for purposes of improving agricultural production systems(Mcleod,1989).
Emphasising the importance of the desire by migrants to purchase a plough, Molefi has recently pointed out the significance of the plough when he said,
"... Basotho could acquire agricultural implements such as plough, planter and harrow. Before then, the Basotho were using wooden implements which were not as effective as steel agricultural implements,"(Molefi,991 :75).
o
Diversification of agriculture:Some peasants migrated to South Africa for employment with the intentions of improving their agriculture by diversifying it through the possible application of new methods. These migrant workers initially aimed at implementing the following innovations in agricultural development:
Purchases of a variety of commercial livestock such as dairy cows, rabbits and chickens;
11 Venturing into new horticultural practices or other systems of commercial farming iii Inter-cropping and irrigation are agricultural practices aimed at restoring soil
fertility and increasing crop production;
iv Purchases of new breeds/hybrids of improved grain seed.; especially for staple food grains of maize, wheat and sorghum;
v Improvement of livestock by either qualitative breeding or additional quantitative purchases of different types of livestock such as sheep, cattle, donkey and horses (Mcleod,1995; Molefi, 1991; Murray,1981).
o
Non-agricultural investment motives:In some cases, people migrated due to the desire to invest migrant wages earned in non-agricultural income generating activities such as:
Petty-commodity production (pcp);
ii Self-employment in either tailoring, repair-work, furniture, cement building block making, taxi-transport or in enhancing the education of the family members (Pae,1992).
o
Desire for individual freedom or to procure funds for lobola ritualsThis historical motive for labour migration to South Africa, has been more profound especially among the young, unmarried boys. In many cases, labour migration was regarded as a means by which individual youths could attain their freedom from strict parental control at home. For example, while in the mines, the youths could freely make their own decisions affecting their lives without any influence or intervention by parents. Thus, they could use the earned wages the way they preferred.
45
The need to acquire cattle for lobola had traditionally placed the youth at the mercy of parents, labour migration came to be regarded as a means for youths to procure lobola cattle on their own and therefore establish their own independent families.
o
Lack of domestic employment opportunities.An unforgettable legacy of British colonialism of Lesotho was the total neglect of bases for the domestic creation of employment in Lesotho. Since colonial times, Lesotho has always suffered from chronic unemployment, hence its historical dependence on South Africa for the employment of her labour force.
Lack of employment opportunities, shortages of land, a depressed state of agriculture, and low wages in Lesotho's formal sector have all contributed to the historic exodus of Lesotho's labour power to South African mines over the last decades (Eldridge, 1993;VanBuren, 1998). Recently in1997, it was estimated that in Lesotho unemployment was exceeding 35%. Although, there have been high hopes that the construction phases of the Highland water Schemes would help absorb a greater portion of the returning migrants from South Africa, unfortunately, this has not been the case(Mcleod,1995).
o
Indirect compulsion by the State (Colonial governments mechanisms of coercion).In most cases, British colonial State policies were fashioned purposefully to force young and strong Basotho male's to migrate to the mines for wages in South Africa. An example being, the notorious historical concept of hut taxation. During the early days of colonialism, every married adult male was forced to pay this hut tax in cash to the colonial government. However, in order to procure the required tax,household heads had to either engage in commodity production or sell some of the household labour power in South Africa (Ambrose 1976; Cobbe,1982;
Makhanya,1981; Matlosa,1996; Mcleod,1995; Pae,1992). It may be found unreasonable of British Colonialism to have initiated and imposed taxation on her colonies without any meaningful attempts being made for the creation of domestic jobs.
Another British colonial state imposition on the Basotho which added to the exodus of Lesotho labour force into South AfriCa for employment concerned the economic tariffs that were placed on Lesotho's grain export to the South African mines to the comparative advantage of both Australian and USA grain export to South Africa(
Murray, 1981). This historic politico-economic exchange between Lesotho and South Africa has since then transformed and reduced Lesotho from its former, historic, economic hegemony as the 'granary of South Africa' to her present and escalating economic dependence on South Africa and European hand-outs (Murray, 1981 ).
2.3.2.2 Impacts of the Migrant labour System
The long history of Lesotho's involvement in labour migration warrants an assessment of its effects on all aspects of rural existence. Most of the literature reviewed for this dissertation basically grouped the effects of labour migration under two interrelated categories: positive socio-economic effects and negative socio-cultural and politico- economic impacts on rural livelihoods.
2.3.2.2.1 Positive socio-economic impact.
o
Historic significance of labour migration and development of Lesotho.Historically the earnings of migrant labour wages by a large proportion of Lesotho's labour force obviously has had impacts on the socio- economic development of Lesotho. The study of the effects of migrant wages from different work places in South Africa seems to have varied considerably depending on the length of the mining history of each individual migrant worker and the type of jobs and skills required by each individual migrant worker. As a result, attempting to analyse the ways in which different migrant workers useld their mine wages is a critical exercise, demanding long term interaction with each individual migrant labour household. Documentation on historical changes to wages that accrued to different migrant workers show that, before 1970's, mine wages were generally low in both skilled and unskilled jobs (Colin, 1998). Any rise in migrant wages has historically been related to subsequent increases in the price of minerals,
47
especially to demand for gold on the world markets (Richardson and Marks, 1984).
Some mining records in South Africa indicate that, in 1982 basic annual migrant wages for underground workers were raised to R500.00, but, with related bonuses and overtimes, some migrant workers became capable of earning over R2000.00 (Mcleod,1995). At the household level, migrant wages in the form of both remittances,goods send home, and the deferred payments that accrued to migrant workers seemed to have risen relatively since the 1970's and then declined thereafter, during the 1980's. Table 2.3 depicts an historical change in Lesotho's migrant labour recruitment and related changes in mine wages over the mining decade, 1974-1985.
As Table 2.3 shows, there was a steady decrease in the number of Basotho miners employed since 1970 with related increases in mine wages.
Table 2.3 Mine Wage employment and Income outside Lesotho (Total Earnings, Deferred payment and mine wages payments in 000 maluti )
Year Employment Annuaf i'abQurforCl! AnnuID P'Jyrnent$ Annua:l wage Rates of wage
,
..
recruitment in({XX) Maluti ) differences increase
1970 87,384 - 4,438 - -
1971 91,000 -3€e6 4,700 -270 -
1972 98,822 7742 4,818 -110 -100
1973 110,477 116555 8,643 -3825 37.15
1974 106,231 -4246 12,463 3820 -5
1975 112,507 6276 19,9'i:6 7532 37.12
1976 121,062 8555 26,062 0067 -1465
1977 128,941 7879 27,fJ:J5 1543 -4524
1978 124,491 -4450 33,268 5663 41.20
1979 124,393 -98 38,137 4869 -794
1980 . 120,733 -3600 42,123 3986 -883
1981 123,539 2806 62,74 -35849 -39835
1982 117,320 -6219 127,724 -121450 -157299
1983 115,320 -2CXX) 177,763 50039 -71411
1984 114,071 -1249 206,474 28711 -21328
Source. Lesotho agncultural Situation report,1988.(After, Santho and SeJanamane, 1~).
Table 2.3 shows a temporal variation with regards to the recruitment of Lesotho's migrant labour force and related fluctuations in mine wages over the decade 1970-1984 . The Table shows, a steady decrease in the number of Basotho migrant workers recruited since 1970 to 1984. It may also be learned from the Table that, historically any fall in price (mine wages) also seemed to have a more or less correspondent change in labour recruitment. An example of this trend is shown in situations where more recruitment of novice labour was made. In such cases, annual rates of wage increase have tended to fall; whereas where no noticeable recruitments were made or in conditions of labour reductions, corresponding increases in wages were assumed; even though real wages remained the same or declined (Richardson
&Marks, 1984). Nevertheless, regardless of either positive or negative changes in wages paid to migrant workers, such wages have had impacts on both, individual migrant workers and their households as well as on the Lesotho Government. In addition any such change is said to have had an effect on the development of Lesotho as a whole.
Until recently, Lesotho's net-factor income from abroad has basically been accounted for by the earnings from temporary labour migration to South Africa. For example, World Bank data shows that over the period from 1965 to 1990, Lesotho's real Gross National Product (GNP) per capita grew at 4.9 per cent, at this time it was regarded as the fastest growth rate in low income Sub-Saharan Africa (Cobbe,1982). Migrant earnings have through history become crucial in determining overall household income and facilitating subsistence among some households. In some instances, household accessibility to migrant remittances had become a historical prerequisite for any successful agricultural production. For example, through enabling the purchase of agricultural inputs and other related household's equipment such as ploughs, seeds, fertilizer, draught animals and the extension of agricultural land through renting of other peoples farmlands. Thus, wages in the form of both remittances, deferred payments or as goods such as clothing, food and other household materials either sent from the mines by migrant workers, or bought with the use of the migrant wages have obviously
49
contributed meaningfully to the upliftment of many households in Lesotho as in other labour reserve economies of Southern Africa.
On a national level, the long history of migrant labour to South Africa has served as an integral source of Lesotho Government revenue. For over a century migrant wages have constituted an essential source of foreign exchange and, the role of migrant wages on the general performance of the economy of Lesotho has been reflected in several ways. According to Rake (1999:256) by mid 1990's about $14 million a year of migrant wages were remitted, this accounted for 8% of the total gross national product of Lesotho and financed a large proportion of Lesotho's massive trade deficit. Thus, up to half of Lesotho's foreign exchange payments have had their source from migrant wages. According to Van Buren (1998 ) in 1996, the gross remittances of migrant workers constituted about 45 % of Lesotho's GNP. This reflected a continued lack of job opportunities in the formal domestic employment sectors of Lesotho.
According to the IMF, during 1997/8 prospects for Lesotho's economic growth had, deteriorated, with the GNP declining to below the gross domestic product. The reason advanced for such an unusual reduction in the GNP has been associated with the recent and current fall in world price of gold, which fell below $300 ozin December, 1997. As a result, about 50,000 mine jobs were declared redundant in South African mines (van Buren, 1998). The use of earned migrant wages in Lesotho's domestic production has been compared and contrasted with various interpretations of classical economic models of development. For example, migrant workers are regarded as having provided employment to others at home and therefore to have contributed in raising the level of subsistence of other households in the villages. As a result of such observations, migrant wages are seen to have fostered domestic production in Lesotho through the multiplier effect of their use in the country as a whole. According to the multiplier effect model, migrant wages remitted home have historically contributed to the creation and generation of Lesotho's national economic development. It can furthermore be normatively assumed that remitted wages, have enabled public expenditure, generated domestic output in goods and services sectors such in commerce education industries, , ,